Rachel Gosnell

After I identified Susannah Tilghman Parker's mother (see post from 4 April), I wanted to learn more about her father. While researching family members who fought in the War of 1812, I had come across the name of Jacob Tilghman in the same unit as the Parkers. I figured this was a good place to start, so I did a Google search for "Jacob Tilghman" in Maryland.

The first thing I found was a reference to a Jacob Tilghman who was born about 1790 and married Rebecca Israel in 1818. This looked like a promising lead, not for Susannah's father, but for a possible brother. Jacob and Rebecca were married by the same minister who married Zebedee and Susannah Parker, Edward Triplett and Elizabeth Parker, and Susannah's mother and her second husband, John Reed. I made a note to follow up on this line of research, then looked at some of the other hits on Google.

One of the hits was a long post from a genealogy message board. As I scanned down the message looking for the name of Tilghman, something caught my eye. There was reference to a Rachel married to William Parker!

After I located the Tilghman reference in the post, I went back and read the section about Rachel and William Parker. It was a reference to the will of Zebediah Gosnell, who died in 1807, leaving the following children: Greenbury, James, William, Rachel Parker (wife of William), Ann Israel (wife of Ely), Sarah, Henrietta, and Leah. When I saw this, I knew that this had to be my family.

Rachel Gosnell Parker almost certainly named her son, Zebediah Parker, after her father, Zebediah Gosnell. Also, Rebecca Israel (who married Jacob Tilghman) was the daughter of Ann Gosnell and Ely Israel. The "icing on the cake" was the name of Greenbury Gosnell. I already knew from land records and newspaper articles that William Parker's land bordered on that of Greenbury Gosnell. What I didn't know was that the two men were brothers-in-law.

Just from this message post I was able to trace Zebedee Parker's ancestry back another three generations. I was able to locate Zebediah Gosnell's will online, as well as the will of his father William Gosnell (died 1762). I also learned that William Gosnell's father was William Gosnell, Sr., who died about 1709. I haven't looked at William, Sr.'s will yet, but I found an abstract of it which named his children.

So you never know what you're going to find when you start researching your family history. My search for Susannah Tilghman's father led me instead to her husband's mother and her family! Curioser and curioser!

Susannah "Reed"

Most of the records I have for my great-great-great-grandmother, Susannah Parker, give her maiden name as Tilghman. A few weeks ago, though, I came across death certificates for two of her children which listed her as Susannah Reed. This presented a puzzle for me to solve, and I always love a good puzzle.

When Susannah married Zebedee Parker in 1819, the marriage record listed her as Susan Tilghman. I had assumed this was her maiden name, but these death certificates made me wonder. Perhaps she had been married before and Tilghman was her married name.

Another piece of the puzzle was a census record from 1850. At that time Susannah was widowed and living in Carroll County with several of her unmarried children. Also listed in Susannah's household that year was a 79-year-old woman named Margaret Reed. When I first came across this record years ago, I had wondered if Margaret was Susannah's mother. She was the right age (about 25-30 years older than Susannah), but I had wondered where the Reed name came in if Susannah was a Tilghman.

I did some research in the Maryland Marriages database to see if I could find a marriage record for a Susan or Susannah who married a Tilghman, but to no avail. I also went back and looked at Susannah's obituary from 1892, but the obituary definitely said that her maiden name was Tilghman.

I was stumped until a day or two later when I had a sudden inspiration. Perhaps it was Susannah's mother who was married more than once, not Susannah! I went back to the Maryland Marriages database and did a search for a woman named Margaret who married a man with the last name of Reed. Bingo! I was ecstatic when a record came up for a marriage between John Reed and Margaret Tilghman in Baltimore County in January 1821 (just one year after Zebedee and Susannah were married)! Further research revealed that John and Margaret were married by the same minister that married Zebedee and Susannah.

Now that I know who Susannah's mother was, I need to figure out who her father was. I've made some progress on that side as well, but I'll save that for another blog.